Speaking to Gamasutra, PCGA president Matt Ployhar theorised that a change in business model was driving piracy rates down.

'What's really interesting is piracy was largely, historically rampant when you had an optical drive or a piece of physical media. And people would go and download the crack for it,' said Ployhar.

'The only PC gaming business models that existed and continued to thrive and that could continue to live were MMOs. They did really well. And then there are free to play games. You can't really pirate free to play. You can but it doesn't make a lot of sense.'

'So, what's happening is game design is shifting and as a result of shifting game design, piracy, at least on the PC side, is actually declining as a result. There are stats that do corroborate that.'

'I'm not saying that piracy is going to go away. It's fascinating to watch. For example, you get a game like Crysis that got hit hard by piracy. Now what you're seeing to combat that are developers implementing achievements, in-game pets, all of these things that are tracked and stored in the cloud. So even if you pirate the game you're still not getting the bragging rights. You've got all these additional mechanisms where the value proposition of the game, where if you pirate it, it's just not going to be as fun.'

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...you get a game like Crysis that got hit hard by piracy. Now what you're seeing to combat that are developers implementing achievements, in-game pets, all of these things that are tracked and stored in the cloud.

I think the case is that now it's just easier to not pirate a game. Buying a game via steam or Direct2Drive gets you the game at max-speed, with support, and not having to worry about stupid stuff like multiplayer not working or having to crack the game. Customers want convenience, it's what pushes many people to piracy in the first place, and digital distribution is finally providing the service we all want.

Originally Posted by ArticleSo even if you pirate the game you're still not getting the bragging rights

I beg to differ, how about those that brag about playing a pirated/leaked game before the release date?

I don't brag about acheivements, my KD ratio has been slaughtered by hacktards with their f*cking aimbots and wallhacks. You only have to look at the PBBans stats to see how rampant these hacks are, and the frequency in which they get banned. What ever happened to hardware bans? if someone with a hacked copy of a game gets banned, they just obtain a different key and start all over again. W*nkers

Originally Posted by ArticleSo even if you pirate the game you're still not getting the bragging rights

I beg to differ, how about those that brag about playing a pirated/leaked game before the release date?

I don't brag about acheivements, my KD ratio has been slaughtered by hacktards with their f*cking aimbots and wallhacks. You only have to look at the PBBans stats to see how rampant these hacks are, and the frequency in which they get banned. What ever happened to hardware bans? if someone with a hacked copy of a game gets banned, they just obtain a different key and start all over again. W*nkers

Be nice to just ban the little gits with an motherboard ID or something right? "Come back when you've got £250 to spend again"... actually thats not a bad idea.

Originally Posted by BazI think the case is that now it's just easier to not pirate a game. Buying a game via steam or Direct2Drive gets you the game at max-speed, with support, and not having to worry about stupid stuff like multiplayer not working or having to crack the game. Customers want convenience, it's what pushes many people to piracy in the first place, and digital distribution is finally providing the service we all want.

In truth I think there will always be piracy. I remember speccy and c64 games being swapped in the playground when I was young. The internet just made it easier.

And, of course, there will alway be those who are just determined to experience something for the smallest outlay. Those people who will happily watch a top film that someone has recorded on their camcorder in a cinema and then brag about it afterwards. What they fail to mention is that their enjoyment of the product is always tainted in some way - whether it be an audience member's head popping up into frame or missing out on the latest patch for Crysis 2.

The reason piracy is so rife throughout the film/tv/music/PC industry is two-fold. Firstly, it is relatively easy to do. A quick trip down google lane can, I'm sure, furnish you with explicit details on how to use bit-torrents.

But it's the second reason that is far more important: Ease of delivery. Download a pirated TV/Movies, store it with 100's (1000's?) of others and then access it in HD on any TV in your house via a cheap media streamer. Games? No disc needed, no DRM, no on-line activation, no trip to the shop AND no wasted money on a crap game. And don't dismiss that last point too quickly because while £5 wasted renting a crap film from Blockbuster isn't the end of the world, £40 spent on a crap game feels like a real kick in the guts. And after a few of those kicks you no longer care too much about those poor developers not getting their money.

Steam and others are making good progress in the "ease of delivery" areas but they still need to go further if they truly want to combat piracy. Prices are often the same (or more) than boxed copies (bad value) & DRM continues to be a nuisance. But Steam sales are very popular because people are willing to pay for quality content if it represents value and ease of use, even if they could have pirated it for free.

The music industry is starting to wake up to the realities of the internet with Spotify and iTunes showing that there is plenty of money to be made through digital distribution.

But the movie/tv industry continues to blind themselves to reality and try to get their lawyers & lobbyists to close Pandora's box and continuing to fail. I mean, really? Make more laws to stop people who are breaking the law? There comes a point where a law becomes pointless if such a large percentage of the population are breaking it that it becomes impossible to police. All you do is criminalise large parts of society with far worse results...just look at prohibition.

I believe that the vast majority of people are happy to pay a fair amount to easily access the content they want to consume. Be it music, games, movies or TV the old publishing systems are not a solution to piracy but one of the driving factors. But for the last 50 years we've had a system where publishers have been making ridiculous amounts of money off of other people's creative talent and they are determined not to give up their cash cow. Who can blame them? Would you give up the easy money and associated lifestyle voluntarily?

But progress is unstoppable and sooner or later they will lose their battle. It's as inevitable as records killing the sheet music business.

I just hope that in their desperation to keep the easy cash flowing, the publishers don't cause widespread destruction in the creative areas of the industry.

Originally Posted by ArticleSo even if you pirate the game you're still not getting the bragging rights

I beg to differ, how about those that brag about playing a pirated/leaked game before the release date?

I don't brag about acheivements, my KD ratio has been slaughtered by hacktards with their f*cking aimbots and wallhacks. You only have to look at the PBBans stats to see how rampant these hacks are, and the frequency in which they get banned. What ever happened to hardware bans? if someone with a hacked copy of a game gets banned, they just obtain a different key and start all over again. W*nkers

Be nice to just ban the little gits with an motherboard ID or something right? "Come back when you've got £250 to spend again"... actually thats not a bad idea.

Glad to see piracy coming down... might be an end to DRM?

Not if some publishers reckon the reason for the decline is due to their drm....

I use to download games because I coudlnt really afford them.
Nowadays I pick games very wisely. I play multiplayer games mostly now and I like progress so there isnt any benefit of pirating those because well, you cant progress. I dont believe in cheating in multiplayer games either, there is no sense of achievement or fun if you do that.
digital downloads is definatly one of the main reasons why I havn't pirated a game for several years. Everything I buy now is either through steam or some other online store(blizzard store for example)
If my PC dies, I log into my account and re-download the whole thing.
I got a new PC a few months ago too. No hunting around for DVD's and game keys. I log onto my steam account and download the lot.

Hmmm... I have several points that occurred to me after reading the above... Firstly, all this nonsense about people 'spending £40 on a game that was rubbish, so they go out and get cracked ones for free instead'... Come on... When was the last time any of you tech-savvy lot bought a game you didnt already know was good? Either hearing it from other owners, through the internet on places like Bit-Tech, or CustomPC, etc. Surely buying something without knowing its any good or not leaves you open to many a pitfall. Generally you research whether a car is any good or not before you buy it, same with a washing machine, PC component, etc, etc. Same with games! So I don't buy that argument.

Secondly, I also don;t think that a quantified decrease in PC Piracy will equal a decrease or disappearing of DRM. All that will be argued is that DRM caused the decrease in piracy, so a decrease or disappearance in DRM could have the side effect of increasing piracy again?

Also, people who brag that they've played a game a week or a month before it comes out are just plain sad, really, arent they? It's a game, for crying out loud. To quote the old adage: Go out, see the sun, meet people, get a girl(or boy)friend...

And tieing bans down to hardware would be very unfortunate for the poor git who buys a second hand motherboard or pc and inds out that he is apparently banned from every fps on the planet with no come back... Dunno about you but i'd feel slightly aggrieved at that...

And yes, definitely, the Steam sales are absolute winners - but why are so many of their normally sold games so much higher than physical store prices???? I thought the original point of Steam was to be able to offer games digitally and so avoid the overheads of physcial media distribution? How can I buy a case and dvd game for over a tenner less than it costs a Valve server to copy some files down the internet to me???

Originally Posted by CardJoeThing is: they SAY they have proof, but they don't actually cite or provide any at all...

Sounds like something I heard on the news over the weekend where they said that the amount of alcohol consumed over the past year has declined, and then this morning I hear another report saying Britain has the highest rate of alcohol related medical emergencies in Europe! I guess its very easy to massage statistics to get your agenda across, if you're clever enough...

Originally Posted by CardJoeThing is: they SAY they have proof, but they don't actually cite or provide any at all...

Sounds like something I heard on the news over the weekend where they said that the amount of alcohol consumed over the past year has declined, and then this morning I hear another report saying Britain has the highest rate of alcohol related medical emergencies in Europe! I guess its very easy to massage statistics to get your agenda across, if you're clever enough...

The amount of alcohol consumed can reduce, that doesn't by any means mean that we are immune to having the highest rate of alcohol related emergencies. Someone has to have that number 1 spot, there will always be a number 1 so even if one person in 1000 drunk alcohol, there would still be a country at number 1.

Originally Posted by jrs77MMOs and online-games in general are not exactly prone to being pirated as you can't play these games with a pirated copy usually... you need an account to play them, and accounts can't be duplicated.

This online-account-thingy can be done for every game basically, forcing players to log in even for single-player games... et voilá... piracy get's less and less an issue.

On the other hand account-hacking increases. That's not a problem for the publisher however, but for the customer.

Alot of games already have this. But unless theres a multiplayer element theres normally a workaround to convince the game that you are connected to the online server when you are infact not.

Originally Posted by greypilgersHmmm... I have several points that occurred to me after reading the above... Firstly, all this nonsense about people 'spending £40 on a game that was rubbish, so they go out and get cracked ones for free instead'... Come on... When was the last time any of you tech-savvy lot bought a game you didnt already know was good? Either hearing it from other owners, through the internet on places like Bit-Tech, or CustomPC, etc. Surely buying something without knowing its any good or not leaves you open to many a pitfall. Generally you research whether a car is any good or not before you buy it, same with a washing machine, PC component, etc, etc. Same with games! So I don't buy that argument.

I disagree here. Not every user is "tech-savvy". Many are kids or parents buying the latest hyped game only to find it rubbish. Then a mate mentions he got it for free off of bit-torrent...

My argument isn't that only good quality games should be released but that games that don't represent value for money help to drive people towards the idea of NOT paying for the next game.

As for buying a car, pretty much the whole of the second-hand car dealership market would collapse if people did full research before buying!

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Secondly, I also don;t think that a quantified decrease in PC Piracy will equal a decrease or disappearing of DRM. All that will be argued is that DRM caused the decrease in piracy, so a decrease or disappearance in DRM could have the side effect of increasing piracy again?

I agree completely that companies will argue that without a big stick they can't keep people in line. But once again my argument is that said "big stick" is helping to drive people towards piracy.

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Also, people who brag that they've played a game a week or a month before it comes out are just plain sad, really, arent they? It's a game, for crying out loud. To quote the old adage: Go out, see the sun, meet people, get a girl(or boy)friend...

Completely agree.

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And tieing bans down to hardware would be very unfortunate for the poor git who buys a second hand motherboard or pc and inds out that he is apparently banned from every fps on the planet with no come back... Dunno about you but i'd feel slightly aggrieved at that...

And yes, definitely, the Steam sales are absolute winners - but why are so many of their normally sold games so much higher than physical store prices???? I thought the original point of Steam was to be able to offer games digitally and so avoid the overheads of physcial media distribution? How can I buy a case and dvd game for over a tenner less than it costs a Valve server to copy some files down the internet to me???

Originally Posted by greypilgersAnd tieing bans down to hardware would be very unfortunate for the poor git who buys a second hand motherboard or pc and inds out that he is apparently banned from every fps on the planet with no come back... Dunno about you but i'd feel slightly aggrieved at that...

Buying anything second hand poses a risk to the buyer, it's normally a trade off between between the price of buying it new versus the possibility of it not working for very long or being completely broken.

I for one would never buy something like a motherboard second hand unless I knew them personally or it was a friggin steal

Steam is great for those with a large bandwidth usage allowance for those at the bottom of the scale, it's simply not going to be an option and to get charged over the odds for going above the allotted usage ends up in some high per/GB charges. Those with any form of mobile broadband wont find 10GB+ downloads much fun at all.

That's a shame too. In the first place, I'm not exactly overjoyed about the idea that installing a PC game from a DVD requires the publisher's servers to be working at the point of install.

I'm even less sanguine about the idea that we're now renting licenses temporarily from publishers whose servers are required even to get the game content.

One day Steam will vanish, and all those people currently gargling Valve's man-parts will look very silly when, on a world scale, what must be hundreds of millions of pounds' worth of software instantly evaporates. And no, when Valve goes bust, the receivers will not care that everyone lost all their games.

1. Unlikely is not the same as impossible. I agree, the odds of it occurring are up there along side the probability that my nose hairs will spontaneously burst in to flame the next time I sneeze. However, that does not mean that it can't happen as we don't know what will happen down the line. Personally I can't see them going anywhere unless they change out of recognition.

2. It very much depends on where you are. My home exchange has no LLU, no ADSL max and so no unlimited bandwidth at a reasonable speed and price. I rely on an old pre fair use po0licy contract where I exchange speed for bandwidth but it can take me several days non-stop to download a game from Steam. The UK are still a wee bit behind where broadband is concerned, especially if you live in a more rural area.

One day Steam will vanish, and all those people currently gargling Valve's man-parts will look very silly when, on a world scale, what must be hundreds of millions of pounds' worth of software instantly evaporates. And no, when Valve goes bust, the receivers will not care that everyone lost all their games.

Valve has already said that they would release a patch to allow you to play the games if steam went down permanently.

no wasted money on a crap game. And don't dismiss that last point too quickly because while £5 wasted renting a crap film from Blockbuster isn't the end of the world, £40 spent on a crap game feels like a real kick in the guts. And after a few of those kicks you no longer care too much about those poor developers not getting their money.

Steam and others are making good progress in the "ease of delivery" areas but they still need to go further if they truly want to combat piracy. Prices are often the same (or more) than boxed copies (bad value) & DRM continues to be a nuisance. But Steam sales are very popular because people are willing to pay for quality content if it represents value and ease of use, even if they could have pirated it for free.

*Snip*

It's as inevitable as records killing the sheet music business.

I just hope that in their desperation to keep the easy cash flowing, the publishers don't cause widespread destruction in the creative areas of the industry.

Amen. Unlike a book if I' know very little about about it I can't thumb through the first few chapters to decide whether If it's good or bad, or simply will I like it or not.

Originally Posted by HorizonPhil Rhodes apparently. Valve needs to build a next level candy bacon breakfast fortress to keep the haters out.

Well I currently liv on a rather large estate in Hampshire that doesnt have fibre optic broadband and has such a pitiful internet connection i STRUGGLE to get above half a meg download speed. This despite the fact in my previous home I could achieve and did have a 20meg download speed.

Originally Posted by BazI think the case is that now it's just easier to not pirate a game. Buying a game via steam or Direct2Drive gets you the game at max-speed, with support, and not having to worry about stupid stuff like multiplayer not working or having to crack the game. Customers want convenience, it's what pushes many people to piracy in the first place, and digital distribution is finally providing the service we all want.

finally someone who gets it.. there's plenty of paying customers who want convenience- why the consoles are so popular

if they can do that for pc.. it would be the same or even better if pre builts weren't so outrageously expensive

Originally Posted by HorizonPhil Rhodes apparently. Valve needs to build a next level candy bacon breakfast fortress to keep the haters out.

Well I currently liv on a rather large estate in Hampshire that doesnt have fibre optic broadband and has such a pitiful internet connection i STRUGGLE to get above half a meg download speed. This despite the fact in my previous home I could achieve and did have a 20meg download speed.

dude, It's affordability not availability, it's okaypeople who live on large estates get those two concepts mixed up all the time.

Originally Posted by Horizondude, It's affordability not availability, it's okaypeople who live on large estates get those two concepts mixed up all the time.

You misunderstand my point? I was saying that in reference to the previous comment that everyone should be able to afford good broadband to download from Steam, that sometimes its not affordability thats the issue, but the fact that the required broadband capability simply ISNT available, no matter how much money you want to throw at it.

Originally Posted by HorizonPhil Rhodes apparently. Valve needs to build a next level candy bacon breakfast fortress to keep the haters out.

Well I currently liv on a rather large estate in Hampshire that doesnt have fibre optic broadband and has such a pitiful internet connection i STRUGGLE to get above half a meg download speed. This despite the fact in my previous home I could achieve and did have a 20meg download speed.

dude, It's affordability not availability, it's okaypeople who live on large estates get those two concepts mixed up all the time.

What does that even mean? What do you even think a large estate is? It could be a large council estate where nobody has any money, or could be a large posh estate with £800,000+ houses that has people with lots of money. His point as he just explained is that you can either have it or you can't unless.

Originally Posted by sausagesWhat does that even mean? What do you even think a large estate is? It could be a large council estate where nobody has any money, or could be a large posh estate with £800,000+ houses that has people with lots of money. His point as he just explained is that you can either have it or you can't unless.

...could be a large council estate where nobody has any money... in New Hampshire, highly unlikely.

My original stance affordability of internet this day and age is non-issue. It's not that expensive. The other guy commented saying that it was unavailable on his property. Which was irrelevant to the direction of the conversation.

I have lost count of how many idiot cheats I banned from our clan server in BF2, we even had one guy battlefield god i think he was called who was admin on a web site called cheaters community a group of individuals dedicted to online cheating and crashing servers that promote fair play in online gaming.

The biggest problem we had was players using the murdercheats 187ci cheat very difficult for pb to detect,do these people have no sense of fun or challenge for me the fun is the challenge when you use cheats you take that away. If I get owned in a game so what thats the nature of online gaming theres always someone whos gonna be your better,and you can always get revenge and shout avit at them on screen friendly rivelry makes for great games and fun enough said me thinks

It's interesting that he seems to be associating the legitimate purchase of a game then the use of a no-CD .exe as piracy (third paragraph) as so long as the purchaser keeps the physical disc, it really shouldn't count as such.

I wonder if he would also consider the creation of a backup (if possible, in the countries which enshrine that right within law) as piracy?

On the other hand account-hacking increases. That's not a problem for the publisher however, but for the customer.

Well the first part of my argument would go to account hacking. I hate it. It is just annoying although I never had it myself. It is also partly to do with the publics tech-savvy level. As there is a bunch in the population who still use 12345 as their password. (even better one would be 123456) because they are lazy. Of course they are other obvious passwords that are used by others remember the Gawker group password leak and one might understand what people actually use

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Originally Posted by Whirly

Not every user is "tech-savvy". Many are kids or parents buying the latest hyped game only to find it rubbish. Then a mate mentions he got it for free off of bit-torrent...

Of course one should always think about the less fortunate lack of money and/or knowledge. So education on the behalf of the government would help a lot (if they actually care rather than creating laws to screw us).

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Originally Posted by Whirly

As for buying a car, pretty much the whole of the second-hand car dealership market would collapse if people did full research before buying!

LOL on that part...

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Originally Posted by BRAWL

Be nice to just ban the little gits with an motherboard ID or something right? "Come back when you've got £250 to spend again"... actually thats not a bad idea.

Thats a great idea.

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Originally Posted by wuyanxu

I've been here before, with Amigas, and I fear the only way is down.
unlike Amigas, PC hardware is always evolving.

Well, look at Intel at its method of integrating of essentially DRM for movies. If you have some sort of integration at that level for all forms of media it would be very difficult to pirate such media. However, I would always suspect such companies from doing such stuff. Also I would hate such form of Big Brother censorship because there will always be major downfall.

Hey Im still surviving on ADSL internet... usual download speed (normal shtuff) hovers at 60kbps and steam was about 100~200... would eventually move to fibre optic. I myself dabbled with BitTorrent, however due to the pitiful download speeds (3 days for one movie) I stopped it.

I have a friend from Myammar and he said that since every single software on sale is essentially pirated so he gets games in Singapore (legally) and brings them back so that it works.

Another argument that I have is that due to the open rampantness of online cheating... pro players eg) one of my friends, gets accused of cheating of using aimbots when he's obviously not...

Originally Posted by B1GBUDI for one would never buy something like a motherboard second hand unless I knew them personally or it was a friggin steal

And it would be a frigging steal because it had already been banned.

Ok, that or should have been an and maybe.... In fact, I've just been offered a Q6700, Asus Mobo & 8GB of RAM for £85 from a close friend, and I know he doesn't game or overclock so it should be in good nick

I think piracy is going down because a lot of games just arent the same if you can only play single player. Bad Company 2 for example is great single player but even better multiplayer! Ofc Bad Company 2 is an absolute bargain to buy at the moment too :) I have been playing BFBC2 since when it first come out and still found it crazy how so many people got to rank 50 so fast.

That and GAME's business model. Who would go to a High street retailer for new games when you can get them cheaper from e-tailers, pre-ordered and delivered on the day of release?

Ironically, GAME's biz model is partly why PC gaming is dying. GAME and other chains rely most on in-store advertising/stocking fees for most of their profit, and without a unified entity behind the PC (like how the PS3 has Sony and the Xbox has MS,) there's nowhere near the same guaranteed amount of profit.

Then the stockbrokers and bean-counters, who are unsure and afraid of new things like digital distribution and thus chose to ignore it and hope it goes away (because it may mean less money for them!) boldly state that PC gaming isn't doing squat because they're not moving any units from brick and mortar stores. Hell, it was only a year or two ago that digital downloads started getting counted as sales in some statistics.

Originally Posted by BazI think the case is that now it's just easier to not pirate a game. Buying a game via steam or Direct2Drive gets you the game at max-speed, with support, and not having to worry about stupid stuff like multiplayer not working or having to crack the game. Customers want convenience, it's what pushes many people to piracy in the first place, and digital distribution is finally providing the service we all want.

As soon as I saw the title of the article, I thought along these lines.

Originally Posted by greypilgersHmmm... I have several points that occurred to me after reading the above... Firstly, all this nonsense about people 'spending £40 on a game that was rubbish, so they go out and get cracked ones for free instead'... Come on... When was the last time any of you tech-savvy lot bought a game you didnt already know was good? Either hearing it from other owners, through the internet on places like Bit-Tech, or CustomPC, etc. Surely buying something without knowing its any good or not leaves you open to many a pitfall. Generally you research whether a car is any good or not before you buy it, same with a washing machine, PC component, etc, etc. Same with games! So I don't buy that argument.

Pre release ordering because a game's concept looked good but the implementation sucked. See Dungeons for an example, I was gutted, I should have waited till the reviews.

One point a lot of people missed is companies lose their jurisdiction in the web, otherwise things like Wikileaks wouldn't exists. They have to create retail markets and that's why consoles and stuff like Steam and Gamersgate come in handy (since there's no difference except they are online and less expensive than material stuff). But piracy is still there and it's used as excuse from developers and publishers to focus on the market where they can get money, creating new services for the future (see windows live) and leaving the "on demand" market discretely. Everything online is turning like some kind of social network: youtube, owned by google, makes a profile of people depending from what you click. If you are interested in videogames you'll see a lot of adv about games and you'll think everyone knows about it and here it comes the hype. And after that you "Like" the vid and spread the word. And obviously "mainstream" crap obscures games which don't get much adv or anything at all. Who know both about the crappy consolish Deus Ex 3 and the pc game E.Y.E.?
Yet games sure cost a lot, and that's where oriental market is successful from a global point of view: free to play games are the less expensive and most popular form of entertainment in China, Korea, India etc.
Stuff like Houds Online, Hessian, Mabinogi heroes XE, Metro Conflict, Huxley, Battery Artic Winds, Dragon Nest, Gunz2 etc. Luckily for us we have Firefall and Apb: Reloaded. But the great logic behind these games is they are meant to be playable on low cost systems: a notebook is well enough tho it's not really a gaming system like PC's or Razor Switchblade are. Such games are more friendly-user compared to the past and care about free users, because online games must become popular to gain more surveys/adv and eventually actions. Like a social network. Except it's not meant to suck money from people pockets like retail and digital-delivery are. They are also more oriented to appeal pc gamers rather than console ones for obvious reasons. Really, f2p games are a bless from god and no1 knows about them....